baseproduct

ROGETRAY wrote:Might be true..but those reviews are for teh 64GB..today's sale is for 128GB....

All versions of the sport stick are listed on the same page, from what I can tell, and all the reviews are similarly in the same spot. I'm reading through them and there are reviews from people who bought 32GB up through 128GB.

They all seem to have the same basic experience. :/

Edit to say the top 3 Amazon reviews here are for the 16 and 64 gig models, so it looks like they're aggregating reviews for the entire product line on the same page.

sdc100

I've used this and it's veeeeery slow. But so are all USB-based memory. So if speed isn't an issue but portability and form factor are important, this is an inexpensive solution. BUT...

1) I've had large (32gb) USB memory failed on me twice so I d0on't recommend putting so much data on such an unreliable format. These are also easy to lose. I guess they're okay for the quick transportation of data though -- but then an 8gb model should be sufficient.

2) USB memory is unreliable because it's dumb. If you don't mind a larger form factor, an external USB 2.5" drive is a better and cheaper option. Drives have intelligent self-diagnostics and self-repair. Bad sectors are marked off, and you are warned if there is impending problems. And they're generally faster than USB memory.

3) An even better option might be a Solid State Drive (SSD). Like USB memory, there are no moving parts, thus mostly immune to impact. But like mechanical hard drives, they have self-diagnostics and self-repair. Essentially, they act like traditional hard drives but without any moving parts/ That means faster speeds, more reliability, lower energy usage, silent operation and much less heat. Amazingly, they cost no more than this Centon DataStick. I recently bought an OCZ SATA2 120gb SSD for $50. I also got an external 2.5" USB enclosure for $2.99. The thing draws power off the USB port, and is the size of a wallet so it fits very nicely in any pocket. I also bought a SATA3 OCZ SSD for only $59, although I know of no external SATA3 enclosure so it's not used as an external drive. I look forward to an inexpensive USB3.0 2.5" enclosure. But even as is, it's MUCH MUCH faster than USB stick memory and faster than any 5400rpm 2.5" drive.

Here's my SSD used as an external drive. Note the size of the drive compared to the USB plug and my Kingston 32gb DataTraveler USB drive.

sdc100

baseproduct wrote:All versions of the sport stick are listed on the same page, from what I can tell, and all the reviews are similarly in the same spot. I'm reading through them and there are reviews from people who bought 32GB up through 128GB.

They all seem to have the same basic experience. :/

Edit to say the top 3 Amazon reviews here are for the 16 and 64 gig models, so it looks like they're aggregating reviews for the entire product line on the same page.

Yep, that's how Amazon works and it annoys a lot of people.

Regardless, the 64gb reviews should be applicable to this 128gb model since the innards, i.e. controller, are basically identical. Only the memory size is different.

JoJoDeMuNkY

sdc100 wrote:I've used this and it's veeeeery slow. But so are all USB-based memory. So if speed isn't an issue but portability and form factor are important, this is an inexpensive solution. BUT...

1) I've had large (32gb) USB memory failed on me twice so I d0on't recommend putting so much data on such an unreliable format. These are also easy to lose. I guess they're okay for the quick transportation of data though -- but then an 8gb model should be sufficient.

2) USB memory is unreliable because it's dumb. If you don't mind a larger form factor, an external USB 2.5" drive is a better and cheaper option. Drives have intelligent self-diagnostics and self-repair. Bad sectors are marked off, and you are warned if there is impending problems. And they're generally faster than USB memory.

3) An even better option might be a Solid State Drive (SSD). Like USB memory, there are no moving parts, thus mostly immune to impact. But like mechanical hard drives, they have self-diagnostics and self-repair. Essentially, they act like traditional hard drives but without any moving parts/ That means faster speeds, more reliability, lower energy usage, silent operation and much less heat. Amazingly, they cost no more than this Centon DataStick. I recently bought an OCZ SATA2 120gb SSD for $50. I also got an external 2.5" USB enclosure for $2.99. The thing draws power off the USB port, and is the size of a wallet so it fits very nicely in any pocket. I also bought a SATA3 OCZ SSD for only $59, although I know of no external SATA3 enclosure so it's not used as an external drive. I look forward to an inexpensive USB3.0 2.5" enclosure. But even as is, it's MUCH MUCH faster than USB stick memory and faster than any 5400rpm 2.5" drive.

Here's my SSD used as an external drive. Note the size of the drive compared to the USB plug.

ROGETRAY

baseproduct wrote:All versions of the sport stick are listed on the same page, from what I can tell, and all the reviews are similarly in the same spot. I'm reading through them and there are reviews from people who bought 32GB up through 128GB.

They all seem to have the same basic experience. :/

Edit to say the top 3 Amazon reviews here are for the 16 and 64 gig models, so it looks like they're aggregating reviews for the entire product line on the same page.

Ahh gotcha, my apologies. I was just looking at the header at the top of the page

sdc100

Although I'm not that old, I'm embarrassed to say that the last video game console I played is the Atari 2600 (!!!!). And the last computer shoot-'em game I played was Wolfenstein 3D. So I have no idea how well an SSD will work with an Xbox. One thing to note is that not all external enclosures are created equal. Mine was bought from NewEgg's bargain bin for $2.99. My guess is that more expensive enclosures may have better compatibility.

Achtung!!! (if you understand that reference, you're as old and geeky as me )

ededed402

I'm pretty sure you could, but you probably would have to format it in some special filesystem that the xbox uses. unless it uses FAT or NTFS, which it very well might. The new xbox's hard drives DO use a sata interface. The old ones do not.

slowmo8

sdc100 wrote:I've used this and it's veeeeery slow. But so are all USB-based memory. So if speed isn't an issue but portability and form factor are important, this is an inexpensive solution. BUT...

1) I've had large (32gb) USB memory failed on me twice so I d0on't recommend putting so much data on such an unreliable format. These are also easy to lose. I guess they're okay for the quick transportation of data though -- but then an 8gb model should be sufficient.

2) USB memory is unreliable because it's dumb. If you don't mind a larger form factor, an external USB 2.5" drive is a better and cheaper option. Drives have intelligent self-diagnostics and self-repair. Bad sectors are marked off, and you are warned if there is impending problems. And they're generally faster than USB memory.

3) An even better option might be a Solid State Drive (SSD). Like USB memory, there are no moving parts, thus mostly immune to impact. But like mechanical hard drives, they have self-diagnostics and self-repair. Essentially, they act like traditional hard drives but without any moving parts/ That means faster speeds, more reliability, lower energy usage, silent operation and much less heat. Amazingly, they cost no more than this Centon DataStick. I recently bought an OCZ SATA2 120gb SSD for $50. I also got an external 2.5" USB enclosure for $2.99. The thing draws power off the USB port, and is the size of a wallet so it fits very nicely in any pocket. I also bought a SATA3 OCZ SSD for only $59, although I know of no external SATA3 enclosure so it's not used as an external drive. I look forward to an inexpensive USB3.0 2.5" enclosure. But even as is, it's MUCH MUCH faster than USB stick memory and faster than any 5400rpm 2.5" drive.

Here's my SSD used as an external drive. Note the size of the drive compared to the USB plug and my Kingston 32gb DataTraveler USB drive.

I agree with the reliability factor. But your bottle neck there is the usb interface which won't let that ssd preform anywhere near what it's rated at. Just seems like that ocz would be better used in your case or laptop.

gak0090

bkarlan wrote:The 64GB I bought on woot came with NTFS which cannot be written onto by a Mac. Since I needed the drive to be used on windows and a Mac, I had to format it with Fat32.

Just a heads up if you use a Mac.

Try this instead, its formatted in exFAT (based on one of the Amazon reviews) which should work in MAC, Windows, Linux (with 3rd party PPA) :
This one is $75 free shipping, made by Patriot (respectable memory company). No reason to buy a Centon death stick when this only costs a net $10 more after considering shipping from woot. 11 reviews on Amazon average 4 stars.
Patriot Xporter Xpress 128GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive Model PSF128GXPXUSB

choekstr

This is a USB 2.0 drive which means incredibly slow speeds based on the interface alone but the memory chips they use are the real limitation. It is a quite slow memory stick compared to other sticks.
Check out the UsbFlashSpeed.com benchmarks:
http://usbflashspeed.com/32672compared to a nice and fast drive:
http://usbflashspeed.com/device/23232

Now speed isn't everything but at the maximum write speed it would take 3.17 HOURS to fill this up! Imagine copying a couple of 1080p movies to this before you run out the door and having to wait 45 minutes for the copy to finish. Sometimes size is great but at this incredibly slow speed it isn't worth it IMO.

mandbaudio

omnitravis wrote:You can only ever use 16GB on something that is not a MS360 HDD. Sounds strange, but sadly, it is true.
You can format any(many?) type of stick for your 360 though, so yea, it would work.

soawesomejohn

I bought the 64GB version when it was on woot last time. Other people posted about reliability issues, but the price was very cheap (<$30 I iirc). I was able to us the drive just a handful of time before it stopped being recognized by any PC.

I understand I can just contact the company and they'll send me a replacement, but who knows how long that will last. A rapidly failing drive is equivalent to a write-only filesystem.

krsteln

Bought this data stick last time it was on Woot. It doesn't work. Tried everything... no file is able to be saved to the drive. Emailed the company twice, no reply. I want to send this one back and receive a working one. I'm glad to mail it to the company or to Woot for an exchange but I have no address to mail it. Any advice?
Thanks!

wpshore

Yea, I have a 64GB Centron and, while it's never lost data, I can't recommend them because, as others have said, they're terribly SLOW. I have 7 or 8 different brands of USB sticks and they're easily the slowest BUT I've thought this might be a function of it's 64GB size (I only have a couple that big). Just saying..

keldez

sdc100 wrote:I've used this and it's veeeeery slow. But so are all USB-based memory. So if speed isn't an issue but portability and form factor are important, this is an inexpensive solution. BUT...

1) I've had large (32gb) USB memory failed on me twice so I d0on't recommend putting so much data on such an unreliable format. These are also easy to lose. I guess they're okay for the quick transportation of data though -- but then an 8gb model should be sufficient.

2) USB memory is unreliable because it's dumb. If you don't mind a larger form factor, an external USB 2.5" drive is a better and cheaper option. Drives have intelligent self-diagnostics and self-repair. Bad sectors are marked off, and you are warned if there is impending problems. And they're generally faster than USB memory.

3) An even better option might be a Solid State Drive (SSD). Like USB memory, there are no moving parts, thus mostly immune to impact. But like mechanical hard drives, they have self-diagnostics and self-repair. Essentially, they act like traditional hard drives but without any moving parts/ That means faster speeds, more reliability, lower energy usage, silent operation and much less heat. Amazingly, they cost no more than this Centon DataStick. I recently bought an OCZ SATA2 120gb SSD for $50. I also got an external 2.5" USB enclosure for $2.99. The thing draws power off the USB port, and is the size of a wallet so it fits very nicely in any pocket. I also bought a SATA3 OCZ SSD for only $59, although I know of no external SATA3 enclosure so it's not used as an external drive. I look forward to an inexpensive USB3.0 2.5" enclosure. But even as is, it's MUCH MUCH faster than USB stick memory and faster than any 5400rpm 2.5" drive.

Here's my SSD used as an external drive. Note the size of the drive compared to the USB plug and my Kingston 32gb DataTraveler USB drive.

I did the math. 128GB is about 131,000MB. At the stated write rate of 5MB/sec, it would take about 7.25 HOURS to fill the drive. For storage that size, I would also either prefer an SSD or an eSATA HD. Or at least, USB3.

Thewacokid

keldez wrote:I did the math. 128GB is about 131,000MB. At the stated write rate of 5MB/sec, it would take about 7.25 HOURS to fill the drive. For storage that size, I would also either prefer an SSD or an eSATA HD. Or at least, USB3.

This.

A cheap SATA1/SATA2 SSD with a USB 3.0 or even 2.0 enclosure will absolutely blow away any thumb drive in reliability, speed, and price.

sdc100

keldez wrote:I did the math. 128GB is about 131,000MB. At the stated write rate of 5MB/sec, it would take about 7.25 HOURS to fill the drive. For storage that size, I would also either prefer an SSD or an eSATA HD. Or at least, USB3.

That pretty much matches my experience. Although I don't have this drive, I have many USB thumb drives and copying 10 gigs took about an hour.

Copying 9 files totaling 10.6 gb from my 7200rpm HD to the above SATA2 SSD (in a USB2.0 enclosure) took only 6 mins 22 sec. Yes, I know that there are many variables but this should give a rough idea of the speed difference.

sdc100

A cheap SATA1/SATA2 SSD with a USB 3.0 or even 2.0 enclosure will absolutely blow away any thumb drive in reliability, speed, and price.

Yep, I bought a 120gb OCZ SSD for only $50 (after rebate) and put it into a $2.99 USB2.0 enclosure. Total cost: $52.99 for 120gb (no tax or s/h on either the SSD or the enclosure). See above photo and description. And yes, it's much faster and more reliable than past USB thumb drives I've owned.

sdc100

slowmo8 wrote:I agree with the reliability factor. But your bottle neck there is the usb interface which won't let that ssd preform anywhere near what it's rated at. Just seems like that ocz would be better used in your case or laptop.

True, but at a total of $52 (no tax or s/h) for 120gb (SATA2), it's not a waste at all. I have to transport massive video files, plus work files, totaling about 100gb and it's the most reliable and cost efficient way. I refuse to risk those files on a USB thumb drive. Nor do I want to constantly copy huge files back and forth between the thumb drive and hard drive for editing. I can work directly off the SSD without copying anything to the hard drive.

As for the laptop/desktop, I also installed SSDs in them. At a cost of $59 for 120gb SATA3, I couldn't resist.

petemarino

This has been the worst USB flash drive I've ever had. I had it for a few months, then last October it quit working a lost my data that hadn't been backed up yet. Centon replaced it under warranty and the second one just failed yesterday. I was able to recover lost files by buying a utility that was able to recover the raw data from the drive. Fortunately, it had been less than a week since I'd backed it up. But the drive is unusable. I will never trust data to a centon product again. I've used many USB flash drives and never lost data before.

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